Sam Carling
MP for North West Cambridgeshire · Labour · United Kingdom
“In a contribution to the King’s Speech debate last month, I listed a range of regulators: the MHRA, NICE, the Health and Safety Executive, the Human Tissue Authority, the Health Research Authority, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Animals in Science Regulation Unit, and so on.”
“I, too, thank the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for securing this debate, and I, too, wish we had more time. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan), who made some difficult, but really important points.”
“That is why I am so pleased to see increasing confidence from the private sector in the UK as an environment in which to do impactful research. Last month, we saw AstraZeneca commit £300 million in investment across the UK, after this Government’s work to agree a pharmaceutical deal with the US enabled that investment.”
“Why do we not create a single front door for study approvals: a unified application process that collects all the information that different regulators might need, so that researchers can fill in one form, and a team of recruited staff whose job it is to liaise with all the regulators, establish who needs to approve the individual study i…”
“I have regular engagement with research scientists, universities and professional bodies through my work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group known as the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.”
“The Secretary of State knows that I have concerns about the enforceability of a platform-based ban, but I welcome the news about tackling infinite scrolling, which affects people of all ages.”
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“This awful case underlines how important it is that we implement the recommendations from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse as soon as possible. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) said, the Home Office has set out plans not to implement the recommendation on mandatory reporting in full. I spoke on Report of the Crime and Policing Bill to set out why that will leave children vulnerable. Will the Secretary of State ask the relevant Minister from her Department to meet me to discuss these concerns in more detail and to find a solution?”
“I thank the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) for securing this debate. As she said, there is a lot of support for this scheme across the political spectrum, and it has been on the books for a very long time—as a good indication, the number of years she just mentioned is longer than I have been alive. Can the Minister confirm that the Government recognise the huge growth that the scheme could unlock not only in my region of Cambridgeshire, but more broadly across the country, and that we therefore want to bring it forward as soon as the financial situation will allow?”
“I hope that after the statement, we will all go away and check whether our police forces are in that 26% who still do not have those basic policies in place and, if that is the case, seek to address it. The statistics on young women as victims of these crimes are particularly shocking. Will the Minister outline more about what we will do about that specifically, and say whether the upcoming strategy will include measures to combat the rise in misogyny among young men?”
“That includes funding for a new Peterborough pool, after the Conservatives closed our regional pool when they ran the council. [ Interruption. ] Again, I am being chuntered at. The Conservatives closed the pool we had when they ran the council. These are the measures of a Government who are making a difference. By comparison, under our predecessors, living standards were hammered, wage growth was stagnant, and millions more experienced food insecurity. Labour built the NHS, and we have always been its best custodians. We have proved that in our time in office so far. We promised 2 million extra appointments in our first year, but thanks to massive investment from our first Budget, we hit that target seven months early, and have delivered 5.2 million extra appointments since July 2024.”
“On average, households in the lowest income deciles will benefit most from the decisions taken by this Government from the 2024 Budget onwards. Indeed, by percentage of income, all but the richest 10% of households will benefit from overall policy decisions in 2028-29. When it comes to slashing the cost of living, this Government are backing up their words with real action, reversing the damage done by our predecessors. [ Interruption. ] Conservative Members are chuntering at me, but I think they need to remember that the last Parliament was pretty much the only one on record in which living standards fell. People in Peterborough and North West Cambridgeshire are really going to feel the benefits locally. I am delighted that the Chancellor announced £20 million for the new Peterborough sports quarter during her speech.”
“The OBR forecast shows that Government policy, particularly the energy bills package and the fuel duty freeze, will reduce inflation by 0.4 percentage points in the next financial year. Gilt yields shot down on Wednesday as the Chancellor delivered the Budget. The markets have confidence in our handling of the economy. On Thursday, JPMorgan Chase announced that it will build a new centre at Canary Wharf that will provide 12,000 jobs and boost our economy by £10 billion. That is not the kind of decision that a major player with global reach makes if it does not trust the Government’s handling of the economy. It is a huge vote of trust and mark of confidence in what we are doing. This is a hugely progressive Budget, as was last year’s.”
“I am delighted that we are moving forward with further measures. Energy bills are being brought down for households by an average of £150 from April. We are introducing measures to tackle child poverty, which will make this Government the biggest reducers of child poverty since records began. We are lifting over 450,000 children out of poverty and benefiting around 3,200 children in my constituency, according to analysis in the Daily Mirror. As with last year’s Budget, we see a significant boost to pay for those on the lowest incomes. When the Conservatives, among other parties, decry that by saying that it will impact on inflation, they need to look at the numbers.”
“That is very generous, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am delighted to speak about a Budget that builds on what this Government started last year and takes the necessary decisions to grow the economy and protect working people. With a focus on reducing the cost of living, cutting NHS waiting lists and reducing the national debt, this is a Labour Budget with Labour values. We have already taken measures to cut the cost of living. We have been improving our energy security, which will bring down energy bills permanently and protect us from the thrall of international markets. We have started rolling out free breakfast clubs in schools, so that parents can get to work on time and kids can start the day ready to learn. We have expanded free school meals and raised the minimum wage, bringing a pay rise to millions of workers.”
“We will achieve a Budget surplus of £22 billion in 2029-30, which would be the largest surplus for over 20 years. Let us not forget that the UK was the fastest-growing economy in the G7 for the first half of this year, and both the IMF and the OECD forecast that for 2025 as a whole the UK will have better growth than the eurozone, Canada, Japan, France, Italy and Germany. So while Reform and the Conservatives scream doom and gloom, the Government are quietly getting on with the job. The Budget builds on everything we achieved last year, and I know that we will see the cost of living slashed, debt reduced and NHS waiting lists brought down.”
“The hon. Member has made his point. As we heard from the Chancellor, all NHS efficiencies will be reinvested in its budget, and I welcome that. My constituents rarely raise with me the specific way in which their healthcare is being delivered. What they want to know is why they cannot get a GP appointment and why they cannot get to hospital on time. What we are doing will deliver changes. We must also talk about our national debt. Reducing the debt is a necessary and moral issue. Of every £10 we spend, £1 is spent on Government debt interest. Imagine what we could achieve if we had that money available to invest in our local communities. I am therefore delighted that due to the measures that the Chancellor has announced, combined with the action we took last year, debt as a share of GDP will fall consistently.”
“Secondly, climate and emissions aims are undermined too. Peterborough city council will not license a vehicle that is over nine years old, but Wolverhampton allows cars up to 12 years old. There is a lot of variance on that.”
“That is not the drivers’ fault, as seeking out the best deal possible is understandable, particularly if it is cheaper or if processing times are faster. However, there are several problems. First, drivers who do the right thing and register locally are undercut by those going to councils with weaker standards, creating a race to the bottom that harms both drivers and passengers. We must emphasise that drivers want this to be fixed too, so that rogue operators can be dealt with. There is a real democratic deficit: local authorities cannot regulate their own standards effectively and they lose control, as seen in Peterborough in my area, where plans for CCTV in taxis had to be dropped because locally licensed drivers would pay more while others would avoid the cost by licensing elsewhere.”
“Right now, local councils have significant flexibility around taxi licensing policy, without a baseline, which means there is huge variance between councils. Yet drivers can operate anywhere once licensed. Unsurprisingly, that creates huge demand for licensing from councils with laxer standards. Wolverhampton has become the UK’s taxi licensing hub. In the first five months of last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) mentioned, the council issued over 8,500 licences, which is more than 30 times any other council in the midlands. From April 2023 to March 2024, 96% of licences went to people living elsewhere. Wolverhampton-licensed taxis now operate nationwide, and a third of taxis in Manchester are registered in Wolverhampton, 80 miles away.”
“I strongly support this Bill and was proud to serve on the Committee. The Bill will deliver an enormous transfer of power out of this place and into our local communities. As a former councillor, I know that trusting local representatives to make decisions about local services and issues leads to much stronger outcomes. I want to speak strongly in favour of the Government’s new clauses 49 to 57, which provide for the introduction of national minimum standards for taxi licensing. I am delighted to see the Government bringing forward those measures, which I and others, many of whom have spoken today, have proposed to tackle the huge problem with cross-border licensing, which is an issue for both taxi drivers and passengers.”
“As with the last Labour Government, we are spearheading the devolution we need to unlock the growth and opportunities that have for too long been overlooked.”
“Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer), talks about establishing local accounting officers and public accounts committees in each mayoral strategic area. The Government have been talking about this for some time, and there is a lot of support for these committees to hold local spending to account and provide some real oversight, so I would appreciate some thoughts from the Minister on why the Government are not bringing that forward at this time, and whether they are considering doing so more broadly. To conclude, I really welcome the Bill. We went through it line by line in Committee, so I know what a difference it will make, transforming local government, pushing power out of this place and empowering communities to make decisions that make sense for their areas.”
“Turning briefly to other amendments, I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s new clause 45, which will remove the requirement for local councillors’ home addresses to be published. Given the security environment, this is excellent news. I am aware of more than one incident in my region over the past few years of councillors’ home addresses being publicised maliciously online by bad faith actors, encouraging people to intimidate councillors in their homes. Indeed, that has happened in my region on several occasions, so this provision will have a tangible impact on keeping safe those dedicated volunteers from our communities who are trying to do what is best. New clause 79, tabled by my hon.”
“I am delighted that the Government have listened to me and others and adopted the proposals that were brought forward in Committee. I look forward to seeing the detail of what the Government propose for national minimum standards, and I will continue to engage closely. At this point, I was going to talk about the importance of considering raising the licensing authority level to strategic authorities and transport authorities, so it was brilliant to hear the Minister say just now that we will be consulting on that, because that is the other key part of this story. Together, those two measures could have a profound impact on dealing with the issues in this sector.”
“Some councils have less stringent Disclosure and Barring Service checking requirements, they are cheaper, or they have no requirement for CCTV or emission-compliant vehicles, so both passengers and drivers are left without adequate protection when there are incidents. That was a key point of the recent Casey audit on child sexual exploitation and abuse, which identified that some councils go beyond statutory guidance as a means of tackling sexual exploitation, but were hindered by a lack of stringency from other authorities. That problem was also raised in the 2014 Jay inquiry into child sexual abuse in Rotherham. That rings true with calls from all sectors, including from trade unions such as Unite and the GMB—I declare that I am a GMB member—in their long-running campaigns around this matter, to which I pay tribute.”
“I recognise what my right hon. Friend has said. In fact, I carefully drafted this speech to avoid attacking Wolverhampton in any way, because I recognise that the reasons for this situation are complex. That goes to my next point: overstretched councils cannot monitor conditions, let alone enforce them, for drivers operating hundreds of miles away. If there is an incident in my constituency of North West Cambridgeshire involving a driver who is licensed halfway across the country, there is no way that their licensing council can properly investigate and do something about it. It would be like asking Police Scotland to investigate something in Cornwall; it just does not make sense. Thirdly, there is a huge safety issue.”
“Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that cross-border licensing is causing huge enforcement problems, because authorities that are miles away cannot properly investigate such issues?”
“My hon. Friend is speaking eloquently about the length of time people have been lobbying for this power. I felt that when I was a councillor. Does he agree that the right to request in this Bill will help mayors to identify these issues, and provide a pathway for them to request such powers much more quickly?”
“I used to be a councillor in an authority that had area committees, and we ended up scrapping them because they were not really doing a good job. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that mandating particular governance arrangements of that sort and at that level within councils in legislation undermines the principle of devolution and that actually we need to let councils do what is best for their areas?”
“I am glad that those governance arrangements work, but they sound like a nightmare based on hearing that information. Would the hon. Member not agree again that under one unitary council, there can be much more strategic oversight of such a situation? If local residents are not happy with the way that is being managed, they can elect different councillors. It should be a simplification, not causing problems like that.”
“The shadow Chancellor has spent a lot of time in his speech talking about what people have said and done. I wonder if I could remind him that just a month ago he said that if he were in the Chancellor’s position, he would raise income tax. How does he square that with the speech he is currently giving?”
“Must Farm is just outside my constituency, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), who I am very pleased to see here. It provides great support for people in Stanground in my area. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming its contribution to the broader area and exploring how we can encourage more people to visit it?”
“That inevitably strains public services; it means difficulties for waste collection, oversubscription to local GPs and—this is one of the most visible issues—not having anywhere to park. I join others today in calling for a simpler, stronger process for councils to issue article 4 directions. We need stronger regulation alongside a drive to build more appropriate housing, to increase supply and counter demand. We also need to have a real conversation about the housing mix that we are building. There are more and more single-person households now, who have nowhere to go other than the most expensive types of housing. Let us provide for them and slash the need for HMOs.”
“While HMOs have their place, their proliferation points to a bad housing market, one in which people are forced to share with strangers because other options are too expensive. As we know, by default, a family home can be converted to a small HMO without needing an application for planning permission, meaning that an awful lot of HMOs, which put an awful lot of pressure on local services, are being created without planning oversight. Peterborough city council’s article 4 directions mandate developers to apply for full permission in parts of Fletton, Woodston and Hampton in my constituency, which is welcome, but that varies by council and area, meaning that HMOs can still build up in one place.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) for securing this debate. HMOs can work for some people, such as students. With the average house price now more than 7.5 times the average salary, compared with the ’80s when it was three times, HMOs are increasingly becoming the default living arrangement for young professionals. After university or college, the last thing young people want is another year—or many years—sharing a space with others they do not know very well. It also does not mean that these people have significantly lower housing costs because, while cheaper than a full home, many of these places are still exorbitant.”
“May I take this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to the first responders, the police and everyone on the train who put their lives at risk to protect others? So many people from the communities I represent in both Peterborough and Huntingdonshire have written to me today in absolute fear, shock and confusion at how this could have happened so close to home, particularly after we found out this morning that the charged individual is from my constituency. Constituents have also been worried and alarmed about reports over the last few hours that the offender may have been involved in further incidents in Peterborough and London. Will the Home Secretary join me in calling for community cohesion following this incident, and ensure that a full investigation takes place into those possible other offences?”
“Last month, I raised the case of my constituents in ex-Ministry of Defence housing in Wittering, who face huge backdated gas bills because their supplier will not take them off a Ministry of Defence contract. Things have escalated; TotalEnergies will not engage, and sends only stock replies, telling residents to fill in a transfer form. When they do, they are sent further debt collection notices, demanding that they cough up a sum of up to £8,000 or be disconnected within a week. Will the Leader of the House advise on how the House can hold such private energy companies to account for making our constituents’ lives a misery?”
“The hon. Lady highlights the problem of residents being charged late payment fees. I have a number of constituents who never received an original letter demanding payment, but who are then charged late payment fees despite not knowing a payment was due. Does she agree with me that the lack of communication is another critical issue that we must address?”
“Unadopted roads are rife in new developments, meaning that residents are paying twice for their local areas to be maintained: once in their council tax, and once in a separate service charge. I counted the number of roads that need to be adopted but are without a section 38 agreement—meaning there is a long way to go before they are adopted—in the Peterborough part of my constituency. There are 289 of them, and they are mostly housing roads. That is an unjust extra charge for thousands of residents in Hampton, Stanground, Orton and elsewhere because roads are not being adopted. Some proposals have been made on how we could tackle this problem. The Home Builders Federation, for example, has made useful suggestions about common adoptable standards and mandatory adoption by public authorities.”
“A resident has shown me figures for one block that show a total insurance premium charged of over £60,000, of which just under £20,000—around 30%—was commission, in a confusing brokerage set-up, with much of that going to a company linked to the managing agent in quite clear ways, which smacks of a conflict of interest or worse. There are so many other examples of this. At another development in my constituency, accounts were provided late to residents for three of the last five years, and in the most recent two years, accounts have not been provided at all, despite much pushing from residents and leaseholders. It is not just leaseholders in flats who are affected by service charges. I have not yet discussed the fleecehold scandal sweeping up so many of my residents in the newly built developments of Hampton.”
“That brings me on to the poor communication. When highlighting the above problems, as well as concerns from residents about service charge breakdowns, I asked the managing agent what it would do to improve communication. I expected an answer that pushed back but at least agreed to look into the concerns I raised. I did not even get that. The response said it all: “We do not consider that communication requires improvement.” Then we come to the fourth horseman: a lack of financial transparency. I have been told by residents that they are contractually bound to an insurance policy with a £5,000 excess, making it completely unusable.”
“When residents took me around their development this year, I saw for myself the shoddily constructed steps that create hazards, plus defective drainage, malfunctioning lighting and so much more. The responsibility for some of these issues is not clear, as the developer should be taking on some issues that arose shortly after development. The lack of clarity means that residents are dealing with onerous back-and-forths, whereby responsibility is forever passed on and it seems like maintenance issues will never be solved. Just today, a resident described to me how there was a rat infestation at one point, and a contractor was apparently paid £30,000 of residents’ money to resolve it. It did not. The residents’ association was later able to sort it out, but not before that huge sum of their money was frittered away.”
“Indeed, it is displaying what I have come to call the four horsemen of the managing agent: hikes in service charges, inadequate maintenance, poor communication with residents and a lack of financial transparency. In a previous contribution in the House, I said that residents had informed me of a 150% increase in the service charge in two years. In its very blunt reply, the managing agent said that that was wrong and that the real increase was only a doubling in four years, which it considers reasonable. I do not, and nor do my affected constituents, who have pointed out that if we factor in various additional costs that used to be in the service charge but were then separated out, it is closer to the increase they cited. Maintenance work does not get done.”
“In this instance, residents pointed out that a £6,000 charge for staffing was levied during a time when there were no permanent on-site managers. I want to give credit where it is due. When I met the team at that management company for an explanation, they held their hands up and acknowledged that things needed to improve, and they have since followed up with residents. Other companies, however, are not quite as reflective. Having thought about this, I will not name the companies in my speech, because I do not want to blight the developments in question, but I must warn these companies that that is an option in the future if we do not see improvements. The managing agent of one development in my constituency did not respond positively to my letter setting out residents’ concerns.”
“I am so pleased that we are taking the time today to debate property service charges in depth. Across my constituency, residents are drowning in soaring bills, deferred maintenance, opaque accounts and a carousel of management companies passing the buck. These charges do not exist in a vacuum; they sit alongside dodgy contracts, conflicts of interest and unadopted roads—a structural failure that leaves residents feeling trapped and powerless. Since being elected, I have had so many constituents come to me with leasehold horror stories. Of course, it is the service charge hikes are that are brought up most. In one case, a £4,600 charge in 2017 was due to increase to over £9,000 this year, in a property where many residents are retired and on a fixed income. That is not to mention the lack of transparency over what the charges were for.”
“This debate comes in a week of real progress: the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has become law, finally giving tenants the fair treatment they deserve. Let’s keep up that progress, because nobody should have to pay through the nose for poor service, broken promises and a system that puts profit before residents.”
“I hope local government reorganisation will help with that, but it is happening in unitary authorities too, and we need to explore ways to deal with that. Ultimately, these are symptoms of a wider issue in how the system treats freeholders and leaseholders alike. The leasehold and commonhold reform Bill will be a vital step forward. I am pleased the Government are committed to ending leasehold for new developments. From my experience, that change cannot come soon enough. A key advantage of commonhold becoming the default tenure is that managing agents will be appointed by and responsible to leaseholders, rather than absentee corporate freeholders. Of course, the situation with managing agents still needs to be improved, and I am very supportive of mandatory regulation as a core step towards that, which I hope the Minister will comment on.”
“My hon. Friend makes a very useful point. I should have clarified that the figure I gave does not include the private roads that were not supposed to be adopted; it was purely the ones that are having this issue. As my hon. Friend says, councils are in a difficult financial situation. The precarious state of local government finances after 14 years of cuts and freezes certainly has not helped. We also have a lot of councils blaming developers and developers blaming councils, and there is an increasing divergence between what council planning departments are requiring to grant permission for development and what the highways departments of said councils are willing to adopt. That is particularly vexing when there is a two-tier system, with planning at one level and highways at another.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her work on this issue on the Treasury Committee. In my speech, I raised an insurance issue that my constituents have gone to the Financial Ombudsman Service about, but they are having problems about whether it is a FOS issue or a property ombudsman issue, and it is just not very clear. Would she join me in calling for more clarity?”
“I am passionate about ensuring that older people in medical settings are not subjected to coercion over their medical decisions. I have recently been contacted by a whistleblower from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who has expressed concern that some of the religious assistants who come in to support patients with their decisions are actually coercing them. Will he offer any thoughts, more broadly, on how we can ensure that people are not being subjected to coercion in older care settings?”
“When I was a council cabinet member, I had responsibility for allotments. We are talking about strategic authorities, and the hon. Lady is talking about powers for them. I can see a duty in the new clause; I cannot see how it would help councillors who have responsibility for allotments to improve the situation, and I fear that having a combined authority stick its nose in could create extra bureaucracy and undermine the hon. Lady’s aims.”
“I really welcome this Government’s move to restrict the access of abusers to their children, in order to protect them. All too often, however, victims who are members of tightly knit, small religious groups are pressured to interact with their abuser when they get out of prison. Some religious leaders and organisations that I am aware of commonly tell victims that God has forgiven their abusers and they therefore need to do so as well. In some cases, I have seen those victims be ostracised or shunned if they refuse to engage. Does the Minister agree that the Government need to think about how we can seek to resolve that cultural problem in small religious groups?”
“I ran a constitution review for Cambridge city council while I was a councillor there, and we spent a lot of time talking about the committee system versus the cabinet system. Does the hon. Member not agree that what she has just described is an example of really positive culture in a council, which can be had regardless of the governance system? Does she also agree that the key thing about the committee system is that it is slow, inefficient and leads to much worse scrutiny? Under a leader and cabinet system we have scrutiny committees, and we end up with much more detailed questioning of evidence in those than in a committee system.”
“I have been thinking about the cost of software licensing in the public sector, because North West Anglia NHS foundation trust is trying to move to an electronic patient record and one of the biggest ongoing costs of that is third-party payments for software. Other trusts are in the same position, as are many schools paying for pupil management software. Will the procurement Minister commit to looking into whether we can instead deliver some of that in-house and save significant sums?”
“PwC analysis has shown that one in three adults in the UK struggle to access mainstream credit, largely due to poor or just thin credit files. That is causing a huge financial inclusion problem, especially for young people trying to get a mortgage. Will the Minister meet me to discuss ways we can improve that situation in collaboration with industry, for example through the reporting of rent payments to credit reference agencies?”
“I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) about the delays to the Bill. I served on the Bill Committee more than a year ago now, and since then, so many tenants have experienced no-fault evictions. I encourage the Minister to move as quickly as possible to implement the Bill, so that I can tell my constituents how soon their assured shorthold tenancies will become rolling tenancies, and so they can benefit from that as quickly as possible.”